Poisoned Legacy: The Fall of the Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty

POISONED

LEGACY

POISONED

LEGACY

The Decline and Fall of the

Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty

Aidan Dodson

First published in 2010 by

The American University in Cairo Press

113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt

420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018

www.aucpress.com

Copyright © 2010 Aidan Dodson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Dar el Kutub No. 2369/10

ISBN 978 977 416 395 1

Dar el Kutub Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dodson, Aidan

Poisoned Legacy: The Decline and Fall of the Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty / Aidan Dodson.—Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2010

p.      cm.

ISBN 978 977 416 395 1

1. Egypt–Antiquities I. Egypt–History–Nineteenth Dynasty, ca. 1320–1200 B.C. 932.014

1 2 3 4 5 6    15 14 13 12 11 10

Designed by iPLUS Knowledge Solutions Private Limited, Chennai-32, India.

Printed in Egypt

To the memories of

William Joseph Murnane (1945–2000)

and

Francis Joseph Yurco (1944–2004)

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Preface

Abbreviations and Conventions

Maps

Introduction: The Glory Years

1      The Reign of Merenptah

2      After Merenptah

3      The Reign of Amenmeses

4      Sethy II Restored

5      Siptah

6      The Reign of Tawosret

7      Downfall, Renaissance, and Decline

Appendices

1. Chronology of ancient Egypt

2. Correlation of the reigns from the end of the reign of Merenptah to the beginning of the reign of Rameses III

3. Royal names of the late Nineteenth Dynasty

4. Tentative genealogy of the late Nineteenth Dynasty

Notes

Bibliography

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

All images are by the author except where otherwise stated.

Maps

1. The Nile Valley.

2. The Near East during the thirteenth century BC.

3. Thebes.

4. The temple enclosure of Amun-Re at Karnak.

Figures

1.  Battle reliefs of Sethy I on the exterior of the north wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak.

2.  The king list in the temple of Sethy I at Abydos.

3.  Battle scene at Beit el-Wali (cast in Hay Collection, Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, BM).

4.  Presentation scene at Beit el-Wali (cast in Hay Collection, Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, BM).

5.  The sons of Rameses II as shown in the procession of princes in the hypostyle hall of the Ramesseum.

6.  The rock-cut temples at Abu Simbel.

7.  Rameses II’s Hittite wife, Maathorneferure, at Tanis (San el-Hagar).

8.  Statue (re)inscribed for Tuya, wife of Sethy I and mother of Rameses II (Vatican 22678).

9.  Pylon of the temple of Luxor.

10.  Section of the tableau of the battle of Qadesh on the eastern tower of the pylon of the Luxor temple.

11.  The Egyptian-Hittite treaty, as inscribed on the outer wall of the Cour de la Cachette at Karnak.

12.  Merenptah, Isetneferet, and Sethy-Merenptah A on a stela at Gebel el-Silsila.

13.  Crown Prince Sethy-Merenptah A, on a block from his father’s battle reliefs at Karnak.

14.  Khaemwaset D as depicted in his father’s battle reliefs at Karnak.

15.  The Cour de la Cachette at Karnak.

16.  The Ashkelon Wall at Karnak.

17.  Detail of Merenptah from the Ashkelon Wall.

18.  The so-called Israel Stela (Cairo CG34025).

19.  Forecourt of the memorial temple of Merenptah.

20.  Reconstructed plan of the memorial temple of Merenptah.

21.  Fragmentary statuary from the memorial temple of Merenptah.

22.  Upper part of a statue bearing the name of Merenptah (Cairo CG607).

23.  Shrines of Rameses II and Merenptah at Gebel el-Silsila.

24.  Messuy before Merenptah on the Old Shellal Road at Aswan. De Morgan et al. 1894: 18[87].

25.  The fortress at Buhen. Martin Davies

26.  Stela from Buhen, dedicated by Khaentjitry (exc. no. 1745). Smith 1976: II, pl. xli[3].

27.  Plans of the tombs of the kings of the late Nineteenth Dynasty and beginning of the Twentieth.

28.  The entrance to the tomb of Merenptah (KV8).

29.  The mummy of Merenptah (Cairo CG61079). Smith 1912: pl. xlvi.

30.  The pillared hall of KV15.

31.  The improvised burial chamber of KV15.

32.  The well room of KV15.

33.  Gilded statuettes of the kind depicted in KV15 as found in Tutankhamun’s KV62.

34.  Detail of the first corridor of KV15.

35.  The temple at Amada. Martin Davies.

36.  Detail of the pylon at Amada.

37.  Statue of Amenmeses in the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak.

38.  Statue of Sethy II from Karnak (Cairo CG1198).

39.  Erased princely figure of Merenptah on a statue of Rameses II at Luxor.

40.  The right-hand wall of the left-hand (Mut) shrine, in the bark-shrine of Sethy II at Karnak.

41.  Year 1 stela of Amenmeses from Buhen (exc. no. 1611). Adapted from Smith 1976: pl. xxx[1].

42.  Aerial view of the temple of Amun-Re at Karnak. Salima Ikram.

43.  Remains of a statue of Amenmeses in front of the porch of Pylon II at Karnak.

44.  Image of the King’s Wife Baketwernel in KV10. Lepsius 1849–59: III, pl. 202[g].

45.  Image of the King’s Mother Takhat in KV10. Lepsius 1849–59: III, 202[f].

46.  Stela 22 at Abu Simbel.

47.  Usurped statue base of Amenmeses (Liverpool M13510). Sams 1839, ninth plate.

48.  Kneeling quartzite statue in the Festival Hall at Karnak.

49.  Standing figure of Amenmeses in the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak.

50.  Head of the figure in the previous illustration (MMA 34.2.2).

51.  Fragmentary statue of Amenmeses in the porch of Pylon II at Karnak.

52.  Kneeling statue of Amenmeses found north of the Sacred Lake at Karnak.

53.  Seated quartzite statue currently bearing the names of Sethy II but almost certainly made for Amenmeses; from Karnak (BM EA26). Trustees of the British Museum.

54.  Colossal quartzite statue usurped by Sethy II, from Karnak (Turin C1383).

55.  Colossus bearing the names of Sethy II, from Karnak (Louvre A24).

56.  Entrance to the Festival Hall at Karnak.

57.  Reliefs of the Souls of Pe and Nekhen in Room XXXV in the Festival Hall at Karnak.

58.  Location of the right-hand stela on the façade of the main part of the memorial temple of Sethy I at Qurna.

59.  The left-hand stela on the façade of the main part of the memorial temple of Sethy I at Qurna.

60.  South doorjamb at the South Temple at Buhen. Caminos 1974: I, pl. 15–6.

61.  Block from a shrine in the Deir el-Medina area, showing the Vizier Khaemtjitry (Chicago OI 10816).

62.  Oratory of Ptah and Mertseger, between Deir el-Medina and the Valley of the Queens.

63.  The remains of the stela from Chapel E at the Oratory of Ptah and Mertseger.

64.  Relief from Chapel G, at the Oratory of Ptah and Mertseger.

65.  Detail of the Chapel G relief.

66.  Limestone block with scene of Amun, Ahmes-Nefertiry and Amenhotep I receiving offerings (BMA L68.10.2.[48]).

67.  Fragment of stela of Amenmeses (Chiddingstone Castle, Kent, Denys Eyre Bower Collection).

68.  Fragment of relief showing Amun offering jubilees to Amenmeses (formerly Liverpool M13827). Courtesy of National Museums Liverpool (World Museum).

69.  Detail of the eastern end of Pylon VIII at Karnak.

70.  Erased relief of the goddess Maat from entrance of KV10. Lepsius 1849–59: III, pl. 202[e]

71.  The bark-shrine of Sethy II at Karnak.

72.  Erased figure of the chancellor Bay in the bark-shrine of Sethy II at Karnak.

73.  Graffito of the Vizier Paraemheb in the Wadi Hammamat.

74.  Hammamat graffito of Paraemheb as Overseer of Works.

75.  The eastern end of Pylon VIII at Karnak.

76.  Scene from the pair of bracelets found in KV56 (CM CG52577–8). Davis et al. 1908, pl. [9].

77.  The quay at Karnak, with the surviving obelisk of Sethy II.

78.  Upper part of a quartzite statue probably usurped by Sethy II from Amenmeses (BM EA26).

79.  The remains of the Ramesside pylon of the Thoth temple at Ashmunein.

80.  The mummy anciently labelled as that of Sethy II (Cairo CG61081). Smith 1912: pl. lxvi.

81.  Detail of rock-cut stela of Rameses-Siptah on the north terrace of the Great Temple at Abu Simbel.

82.  Graffito on the Old Shellal Road at Aswan, showing the viceroy Sethy before Siptah and the chancellor Bay. De Morgan et al. 1894: 28[6].

83.  Detail of a stela of Sipath and Bay in the rock temple at Gebel el-Silsila.

84.  Relief on the rear of the podium in the mortuary temple of Montjuhotep II at Deir el-Bahari (head of king NMS A.1907.712.6). Photo Aidan Dodson/drawing Naville 1910: pl. x[K].

85.  The mummy of Siptah (CM CG61080). Smith 1912: lxii[1].89

86.  Mutilated statue, showing Siptah on the lap of an adult (Munich Gl.122).

87.  Detail of the right-hand stela in the Qurna temple of Sethy I.

88.  Stela from the Kom el-Sultan at Abydos showing a divine bark that may commemorate Amenmeses (Cairo JE8774). Mariette 1880a: pl. 52.

89.  Image of Tawosret from the first corridor of KV14.

90.  Siptah and the goddess Isis in the first corridor of the tomb of Tawosret (KV14). Martin Davies.

91.  Relief on doorjamb of the Great Temple at Abu Simbel, showing the names of Siptah being adored by Tawosret and Bay.

92.  Doorjamb at the Amada temple showing Tawosret.

93.  Doorjamb at the Amada temple showing Bay.

94.  Map of the south-western corner of the Valley of the Kings. After Weeks (ed.) 2000: sheet 3/72.

95.  Entrance to the tomb of Bay (KV13).

96.  Remains of the lintel of the entrance of the tomb of Bay. Lefébure 1886-89: 122.

97.  Middle Kingdom sphinx at Nabesha, reinscribed by a number of later kings. Courtesy Egypt Exploration Society.

98.  The feet of the mummy of Siptah. Smith 1912: lxii[2].

99.  Reliefs of the reign of Siptah at the South Temple at Buhen. Caminos 1974: pl. 30, 33, 40, 43, 52, 54, 57, 87, 85.

100.  Partly restored plan of the memorial temple of Siptah.

101.  Sandstone foundation deposit plaque from the memorial temple of Siptah bearing the name of Bay (Petrie UC14376). After Petrie 1925a: fig. 57.

102.  Rear part of the tomb of Siptah.

103.  The water-damaged burial chamber of KV47. Martin Davies.

104.  Fragments of Siptah’s canopic chest (MMA).

105.  The left-hand side of the entrance to the tomb of KV47. Martin Davies.

106.  Image of Sethy II in KV14.

107.  Relief of Tawosret from the first corridor of KV14.

108.  The lid of Tawosret’s queenly sarcophagus. Adapted from Altenmuller 1994a: pl. i.

109.  Upper part of the lid of the sarcophagus in KV14. Martin Davies.

110.  The remains of the memorial temple of Tawosret.

111.  Partly reconstructed plan of the memorial temple of Tawosret.

112.  Statue of Tawosret as king, from Heliopolis (Medinet Nasr; present location unknown). Drawing by Gae Callender after a photograph; graphic courtesy of Kmt Communications, Inc.

113.  Stela of Sethnakhte from Elephantine (Elephantine Museum).

114.  Stela of Bakenkhonsu B, dated to Year 4 of Sethnakhte, found on the sphinx avenue at Luxor. Courtesy Supreme Council of Antiquities.

115.  Stela of Sethnakhte in the Hathor temple at Serabit el-Khadim. Peet and Gardiner 1917: pl. lxxiii[271].

116.  Rear wall of Chapel D in the Oratory of Ptah near Deir el-Medina. Lepsius 1849–59: III, pl. 206[d].

117.  Outer part of KV11. Martin Davies.

118.  The breakthrough between KV11 and KV10. Martin Davies.

119.  Image of Sethnakhte in the outer part of KV11.

120.  Rear wall of chamber E in KV14. Martin Davies.

121.  Pillar in KV14 with an inked outline of Sethnakhte.

122.  Lid of the sarcophagus in KV14. Martin Davies.

123.  The north wall of the Great Temple at Medinet Habu.

124.  Detail of Rameses III’s sea battle from the north wall of Medinet Habu.

125.  The Min Festival procession in the Great Temple at Medinet Habu.

126.  Papyrus Leopold II (Brussels E6857).

127.  The Wall of the High Priest at Karnak.

PREFACE

The later years of the Nineteenth Dynasty have received relatively little attention from Egyptologists. The reasons for this derive not only from their position between the relatively well-documented reigns of Rameses II and Rameses III, but also from the myriad uncertainties surrounding the era—even the succession of kings remains debated to this day. However, it is these very uncertainties that make the period a fertile ground for research, and first attracted me to it.

Like the notorious Amarna Period of a century and a half earlier, a feature of the period is the way in which Egyptian posterity attempted to erase a number of its protagonists from the historical record. Similarly, events of potentially crucial import are hinted at only by fragmentary and/or equivocal data, meaning that there are perhaps as many interpretations of what might have occurred as there are scholars who have seriously studied the period.

Accordingly, any attempt at producing a single account of the years between the death of Rameses II and the accession of Rameses III can in no way present a consensus view, as such a thing does not at present exist! However, while putting forward what I believe to be—on the present evidence, at least—the most plausible reconstruction of events, I have also tried as far as possible to note where others’ opinions differ from mine, and in any case lay out the range of evidence on which any view of any episode has to be based.

This book is dedicated to the memory of two scholars whose contributions to the history of the Nineteenth Dynasty were immense, and whose premature demise has left Egyptology poorer. Some of the conclusions reached here differ from those obtained by Bill Murnane and Frank Yurco—in particular as regards the ancestry, and nature of the reign, of Amenmeses, about which Frank and I published a pair of papers with diametrically opposite conclusions in the 1997 issue of the Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt. However, without their work on the monuments of the period, in particular at Karnak, much of this still opaque era would have remained even more obscure. Bill was particularly generous in sharing his data, and my wife Dyan and I cherish the memory of a final Chinese meal with him in Luxor, only a few months before his untimely death.

My work also owes much, of course, to the work of a whole range of other scholars, in particular that carried out on the reign of Amenmeses by Rolf Krauss, and the heroic documentation of the Ramesside Period by Kenneth Kitchen, without which any work on that era would be immeasurably more laborious. The work of Otto Schaden in the tomb of Amenmeses should also be highlighted as producing the sort of fresh data that are crucial if any of the suppositions that underlie so much of Egyptian historical research are to be replaced by newer ones built upon firmer foundations. Similarly, Peter Brand’s continuation of Bill Murnane’s epigraphic labors at Karnak is once again allowing scholars access to the facts on the ground (or, rather, wall) to replace less rigorous reports of the past. However, the work of our predecessors remains of importance, particularly where the evidence they recorded no longer exists: witness the bombing of Liverpool Museum in 1941 that resulted in the loss of two of the already rare monuments of Amenmeses, one of which held crucial, if ambiguous, evidence that can now only be assessed via the notes of Percy Newberry, Eric Peet, and Bryan Emery (see p. 32, below).

Various other friends and colleagues are also owed my thanks for all kinds of help over the years during which I have worked on this period and on this book, including Catherine Bridonneau; Ashley Cooke; Tom Hardwick; Salima Ikram; Ray Johnson and his colleagues at Chicago House, Luxor; Jaromir Malek; Sara Orel; Bob Partridge; Catherine Rohrig; Otto Schaden; and Jürgen Schesser. As always, I am indebted to my wife, Dyan Hilton, for all her support, and to her, Martin Davies, Reg Clark, and Sheila Hilton for reading and commenting on the manuscript; I am also indebted to Martin for allowing me to freely plunder his photographic collection and use so many choice items from it. In conclusion, however, I remain wholly to blame for all errors and questionable statements that remain within the covers of this book.

Department of Archaeology and Anthropology                        September 2009

University of Bristol

ABBREVIATIONS

AND

CONVENTIONS